Coheed and Cambria’s upcoming sixth studio album will be a double concept album entitled The Afterman, and will be released in two separate full-length volumes. The modern progressive rock band made the announcement through a cinematic trailer on their website earlier this month. The 90-second short – directed by acclaimed film-maker Robert Schober – is shot in a haunting, film-noir style, and is complemented by a classic Coheed and Cambria combination of reverberating, Zeppelin-esque guitars and delicate piano progressions.

A new double album promises to delight Coheed and Cambria fans

All of Coheed and Cambria’s albums are concept albums, tracing a grand, sci-fi story arc entitled The Amory Wars. Written by lead singer Claudio Sanchez, The Amory Wars has been transcribed into comic books and graphic novels. Earlier this month it was also revealed that Mark Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson of Leverage Productions – the creative team behind Entourage and Boardwalk Empire – have decided to turn The Amory Wars into a live-action feature film. This latest 90-second trailer depicts a cosmonaut making a journey into a monochrome unknown, and promises to take the story in an intriguing new direction. “In the past,” Sanchez writes, “I’ve always had a predetermined idea of what the story was going to be when I approached the songs. With The Afterman being a new story within the [Amory Wars] arc, I allowed the events of my life to drive the concept, and therefore opened up the song writing to a fuller degree.”

Following the 2011 departure of Chris Pennie, these two volumes see the welcome return of their original drummer Josh Eppard and the distinctive percussive sound that helped secure that band’s acclaimed status in the early years. This two-part volume is sure to delight more ardent or traditionalist fans, with its potent combination of powerhouse progressive rock, soul, and even moments of poppy bounciness. It also marks a new direction for the band’s main songwriter: “This is without a doubt, the most honest record I’ve ever written,” says Sanchez. “Though all the songs can be interpreted through our main character in the story, they were initially written in a very spontaneous manner.”

The first volume of the album, The Afterman: Ascension is set to hit stores in October 2012, coinciding with their UK tour that kicks off in November. Although currently on the road with rock-gods Iron Maiden, the band will also be appearing at Leeds and Reading festivals where they will hopefully be debuting some of the material from their latest record.

The second volume, The Afterman: Descension is set for release in February 2013. A deluxe version of The Afterman will include a hardcover coffee-table book with artwork by Heidi Taillefer and Nathan Spoor. This deluxe edition will also include collaborative writing from Sanchez and writer Peter David, providing a guided, song-by-song experience of the album’s tracks.